Bank of America Gets a $1.2bn Bill

Bank of America was ordered to pay $1.2 billion by the U.S. Treasury Department after regulators said it breached anti-money laundering rules and processed payments that violated sanctions programs.

Treasury said the penalty is the third largest in its history. It includes a $750 million payment to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which the agency described as its largest fine on record.

The department said Bank of America admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act, failed to maintain a legally adequate anti-money laundering program and did not file required suspicious activity reports. Treasury said the bank failed to promptly report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions to FinCEN, including more than $1 billion tied to risks involving Chinese money laundering networks, fraud and possible trade-based money laundering linked substantially to the U.S. southwest border.

Treasury also said the bank is settling potential civil liability for 475 apparent sanctions violations handled by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. According to the department, the bank processed millions of dollars in payments that appeared to breach sanctions programs targeting Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, narcotics trafficking and global terrorism.

That matters beyond a single balance sheet. Bank of America is one of the largest payment processors in the U.S. financial system, moving trillions for retail and corporate clients. When controls fail at that scale, the state is not punishing a paperwork lapse. It is responding to a weakness inside financial plumbing that sanctions policy and money-laundering enforcement depend on.

Bank of America said financial crime compliance is serious, that it has invested billions of dollars in technology and thousands of employees, and that it is well advanced in completing work required by regulators.